There are no short cuts. Read the Wiki article link above(Getting Started). It seems you were not diversified enough and your asset allocation was not right for your risk aversion. Look at this funds performance: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0681&FundIntExt=INT#tab=1 Cl...

This is what often works out to be the lowest cost portfolio structure: 401k 500 index bonds IRAs international extended market or small cap index to complete the 500 index maybe bonds here too REIT if desired I'll keep this in mind. But I am leaning away from having to do much,if any, rebalancing.

No. If you consider the allocation of the IRAs first, that might force you into using less desirable funds in the 401k. Pick the cheapest fund(s) in the most restrictive account (your 401k) and build around that. This will achieve the best choices at the lowest overall portfolio cost. I am having a...

I have some money for growth investment, which needs to be: - index ETF fund, not need to worry too much about maintenance, - has better return than bond. - does not have high risk. - expected return > 8%/year in the next 5 years. please share with me your input. thanks! Just to repeat. It doesn't ...

The problem is that my current 401K only has about 17% of my portfolio. That does not matter. Again, setting up your 2 IRAs first is backwards. Start with the 401k and build around that, not vice versa. See the link below for how to get help with this type of question. Why? If 90% of my money is in...

My 401K offers.... In that case, you are going about this backwards. You should pick the best fund or two in your 401k and build the rest of your portfolio around that using the space in the 2 IRAs. The problem is that my current 401K only has about 17% of my portfolio. If you had a good target typ...

Yes, have you considered vanguard instead of Schwab John Those funds are in my 401K at work. I do have some Vanguard funds that I am invested in there but I am going to re-balance away from my current selections (and into the Vanguard funds) as I see that I have some money in some funds that have E...

Trust? Do you mean a Target Retirement fund? I don't see a problem with your idea if you realize it will throw your bond and international allocations off by a bit. For example, if you use a target fund with 80% stock/20% bonds, and put 10% of your portfolio into REIT, you will only have 18% in bon...

For an additional half a percentage point over a weighted average for the ERs of the three underlying funds . . . No problem with the plan, but I think this is wrong. The ER is higher by maybe 0.05%. If it were 0.5% it would not be worth it, I think. I am not too confident in my answer myself. What...

Thanks. Something I just thought of: I will be transferring over my traditional IRA (90% of portfolio) and a Roth IRA (10% of portfolio). I was thinking I would put the traditional IRA in the Trust and then split the Roth between a REIT and some other fund, like a bond fund. Any funds added to the R...

Is there a reason you don't want the 4 index funds? John For an additional half a percentage point over a weighted average for the ERs of the three underlying funds, I get daily rebalancing. There is no way I could do better than that on my own, which I have no interest in doing. So, set it and for...

I will be transferring my money into a Target Retirement Fund soon. I would like to add a REIT index fund as well to make it similar to the Four Square Lazy Portfolio. Is this a sound idea? This has less to do with my retirement goals and more to do with fund management. My reasoning: I would not be...

You're either looking at the wrong charts or not interpreting them correctly. I figured this is the problem, that is why I am asking. I am glad it is only an interpretation problem and not a performance problem. Here is a 10-year total-return plot for TR 2020, 2035, and the S&P 500. It shows ab...

If I look at Vanguard Target Retirement 2020 vs S&P 500 over a 10 year period on Morningstar, it lost much less during the crash and now they're basically equal. What charts are you looking at? :P Vanguard Target Retirement 2020 Fund https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/ ... =INT#tab=1 I chec...

Can you give us an example of what you mean? What target date fund, and from what to what timeline are you using. Also, remember that the S&P 500 does not directly line up with any target date fund. The target date funds have total stock, total international, and total bond. So, that's not a re...

[Question #2: What risk are bonds reducing? If I look at the performance before and after the crash of 2008 I see that all the Target funds did worse than the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones US Total Stock Market Index. Bonds do dilute the volatility but only in proportion to their presence. 14% bonds...

With a 50% market crash you lose 50% with an all equity portfolio while having nothing left to buy more stocks with. With a 50/50 stock bond portfolio you only lose 25% of your value and can easily rebalance by selling some bonds to buy more stocks. Somewhere between these two ranges is a good plac...

Hi, newbie here. I am doing my research before transferring over my traditional and roth IRAs over to Vanguard. A few questions came up when reading up on bonds. I am 48 and am looking at the Vanguard Target Retirement 2035 Fund (VTTHX). It has only 14.5% in bonds. Question #1: If Bogle recommends &...